Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday prayed at one of the most revered Christian shrines hours after leading an open-air mass in central Paris attended by 260,000 people.The leader of the world's one billion Catholics traveled to Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwest France to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Vatican-recognised apparitions of Mary to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous.
After visiting a church where Bernadette was baptised and the small room where her family lived in poverty, the pope went aboard his popemobile to the grotto where she had her "encounters" with the Madonna.
The pontiff knelt in prayer at the grotto of Masiabelle where Mary is said to have appeared 18 times to Bernadette in 1858 and drank a glass of water from the "miracle" springs presented to him by a young girl.
The 81-year-old pontiff was making his first visit to France since his election in 2005.
Under bright sunshine at the historic Invalides esplanade in central Paris, Benedict earlier appealed to young Catholics to shun the false "idols" of the modern world and told them not to be "afraid" of a religious life.
France is facing a freefall in the number of churchgoers despite its deep Christian roots, with only 10 percent of Catholics saying they attend mass regularly, according to a survey last year.
"The pope is bringing a message of peace," said Maryse Legat, who stood under grey skies near the arches of the Basilica of the Rosary leading to the grotto.
"He is here to guide us and give us certainties at a time when our world is caught up in too much turbulence," she said.
Benedict then took part in a torchlight procession in the town square and was to address the faithful.
For the German pope, the Lourdes visit was an opportunity to shed his image in France as a cold theologian lacking the charisma of his predecessor John Paul II.
During an emotional visit to the shrine in 2004, a year before his death, John Paul declared himself "a sick man among the sick" as he struggled with advanced Parkinson's disease.
During his three-day visit to Lourdes, Benedict was to hold two masses, reaching out to the sick and disabled who drink the spring water or bathe in the pools in search of a miracle cure.
Thousands of "miracle" cures have been claimed after visits to Lourdes but the Catholic Church has only certified 67.
"Naturally, we don't go to Lourdes for miracles," the pope told reporters en route to France. "We go there to seek the love of the Virgin Mother which is the true healing."
Organisers said they expected 150,000 faithful at the Sunday services in Lourdes, fewer than originally thought due to rain and a cold snap.
Another highlight of the visit would be a mass on Monday dedicated to the sick.
Six million people visit Lourdes annually but the figure is expected to top eight million during this anniversary year.
The pope arrived in Paris on Friday, meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy who has called for easing France's strict secularism defined in a 1905 law on the separation of church and state.
Sarkozy, a twice-divorced lapsed Catholic, broke a French taboo during a trip to the Vatican last year by calling for a "positive secularism" that would allow space for religion in public life.
The pope sought to build on Sarkozy's position, saying Europe faced "disaster" if it turned away from religion.
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